The publication’s Editor-in-Chief Verashni Pillay admitted to the public that the outlet had been duped and the author of the piece might not even exist.

“The blog submission from an individual who called herself Shelley Garland, who claimed to be an MA student at UCT, cannot be traced and appears not to exist,” Pillay wrote Saturday.

The day before retracting the article Pillay came out to defend the piece and its argument. Pillay accused readers of sending HuffPo South Africa “overtly racist, sexist and violent” emails before explaining how the argument to deny white men the right to vote is valid.

“Those who have held undue power granted to them by patriarchy must lose it for us to be truly equal. This seems blindingly obvious to us,” explained Pillay.

“We further understand that universal enfranchisement followed a long struggle and we fully support this,” she wrote. “In addition, Huffington Post South Africa is a signatory to and supporter of the South Africa Press Code. We support free expression as limited by the following value as set out in that code.”

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